Iraq

More than 25,000 Iraqi troops and militia fighters began a long-awaited operation Monday to retake the central Iraqi city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, from the Islamic State in what many see as a test of the central government’s ability to retake and hold much of the territory lost to...

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Archive by category ''Iraq

U.S. commanders pressing for an attack on Mosul perhaps as early as this spring may be underestimating the importance of the city to its Islamic State occupiers, who are likely to put up a huge fight to retain their control, experts who’ve studied the extremist organization say.

A planned offensive to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State insurgents, perhaps as soon as April, could send more than 1.5 million people fleeing, a senior United Nations humanitarian relief official warned Tuesday.

Major Deliar Shouki, the commander of a string of Kurdish fire bases less than 20 miles from Mosul, admitted he was skeptical when he’d heard the news last week that a U.S. official had told Pentagon reporters that 25,000 Iraqi troops would attack the Islamic State-held city perhaps as soon...

Right after Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha arrived in Washington, the Islamic State attacked his compound in Iraq’s western Anbar province in a not-so-subtle message as he requested U.S. weapons for his tribesmen fighting the extremist group.

Ahmed Abdulateef’s gift for music made him a target in his hometown of Baghdad, where his father smashed his guitar and militants held a gun to his head for daring to follow a passion that has no place in their rigid brand of Islam.

The bridge not far from the village of Khrabarut doesn’t look like much – a single concrete track over a drainage canal about 100 yards long – but it’s turned into a pivotal landmark in the fight between Kurdish forces and the Islamic State southwest of the oil-rich city...

Islamic State fighters killed at least 30 Kurdish militia members in fierce fighting over the weekend, the heaviest combat near Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, since the U.S. began airstrikes last August.

Islamic State forces began a powerful counterattack Monday to retake the Iraqi town of Bayji, site of the nation’s largest oil refinery. The militants’ assault came as Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish fighters along with heavy U.S. airstrikes continued to pound the jihadist army in northern...

Iraq’s central government and the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region reached a deal on oil sales Tuesday that officials in Baghdad are hailing as a major victory for the new administration of Prime Minister Haider al Abadi.